Tom Reynolds, a Cicero for our times

Tom Reynolds has come into his own lately. After three years of invisibility in the State Senate, he's started making some noise.

It's not all the kind of noise you'd like to be making as you start to get ready for what could be a tough reelection campaign, and maybe even a primary challenge from another Republican.

Reynolds, an extreme right-winger who ran for Congress repeatedly, and was crushed every time, mobilized his fellow wingnuts to knock off Peggy Rosenzweig in a GOP primary in 2002. She had committed the unpardonable sin of being a little bit moderate.

Reynolds is the guy who refused to hold a hearing on raising the minimum wage and said a lot of people weren't worth more than $5.15 an hour.

He threatened to vote against the state budget because it spent too much money, and was only persuaded to support it after an amendment was added to spend some more money -- $14.6-million a year to give tax credits to people who send their children to private schools or teach them at home. It did not escape notice that Reynolds home schools his own kids, and would personally benefit from the $100 per student tax credit. Spivak & Bice column.

Reynolds insisted he was only doing what's right for parents of non-public school students. But that rings a little hollow in the context of the state budget passed by the Republicans, which will force the layoffs of thousands of public school teachers, increased class sizes, and cuts or elimination of many programs.

But it was enough to get Reynolds' vote, which the GOP needed to pass the budget.

One thing that was surely nagging at him was the fact that Rep. Leah Vukmir, a Wauwatosa Assembly member who is rumored to be thinking about a primary challenge to Reynolds, voted against the budget. So if there is a GOP primary, he's now the big spender. (UPDATE: Vukmir voted against the Assembly budget, but voted for it the second time around, with the changes made by the Senate. What changed her mind? Maybe she is a home-schooler too?)

Even if he survives that, Reynolds is targeted by Democrats as a seat they could win back in 2006. Jim Sullivan, a Wauwatosa alderman, is already running.

I don't know if any of that background helps explain Reynolds' latest idea -- to raise the speed limit to 75 on Wisconsin's freeways and expressways. Might as well make it legal, Reynolds says, because everyone drives that fast anyway.

It's the natural order of the universe. As someone e-mailed to me, that makes Reynolds a modern day Cicero.

If we apply the Reynolds philosophy to Wisconsin state government, I can envision a lot of changes coming in our state laws. If people are already doing it, we might as well legalize it. Why stop with the speed limit? The possibilities are endless.